Civic Center hosts inaugural Alabama Bigfoot Conference
Jun. 11—OXFORD — Flooded with Subarus and Jeeps sporting "I believe" bumper stickers, the parking lot of the Oxford Civic Center bore clear evidence of something special going on inside Saturday — the inaugural Alabama Bigfoot Conference.
Enthusiasts from all over the state gathered in a shared celebration of the large camera-shy creature, also known as "Sasquatch," that is said to dwell in forests across the U.S. The 2022 Alabama Bigfoot Conference attracted around 12 vendors to the second floor of the Civic Center offering Sasquatch-related merchandise. Famed guest speakers, such as Cliff Barackman of the Animal Planet show Finding Bigfoot, spoke with guests about their experiences and teachings about Bigfoot.
Barackman has been a bigfoot researcher for 28 years, in addition to hosting Finding Bigfoot. He owns the North American Bigfoot Center, which he said was the Pacific Northwest's largest collection of "Bigfoot evidence and historical artifacts on display anywhere."
Barackman said he's even seen the ever elusive creature once — on a thermal imager in North Carolina in February 2011.
"But, I've heard them many times; I've tracked them, smelled them; I've had rocks thrown at me; I've been screamed at from close range," Barackman said. "I've cast prints. I've had a little bit of everything."
Asked what he thought Sasquatches were, Barackman said they were something called a "relict hominoid."
Relict, he explained, was something that means still existing in small numbers, and hominoid meaning human-like.
"They are a surviving population of 'something,' and what that something is, is up for debate," Barackman said. "Some people think they're a relict gigantopithecus — which is the largest ape ever known to live — but I mean, who knows."
Some claim spotting a Bigfoot is easy-peasy. Conference attendee Lanita Bryant claims she has several Bigfoot that she interacts with regularly.
"I have Bigfoot here, a lot of Bigfoot, that I go and feed and see all the time," Bryant said.
Retired from the medical field, Bryant said she now spends her days speaking about her Bigfoot experiences at conferences such as this one, on YouTube shows and television shows such as Bigfoot Odyssey.
When another conference attendee suggested she take The Star's reporter to the site where the Bigfoot are located, Bryant said taking three people near them would scare them and they would likely not show.
Cement casts of huge feet, fossil parts of large ape-like jaw bones, several book authors, a silent auction and a plethora of souvenirs, there was plenty to take in at the conference.
Conference organizer Anita Collier is the person visitors could thank for the whole shebang. "A long time ago in 1979, I had actually spotted a Bigfoot on a date on Mount Cheaha," Collier said.
Collier said she and her date swore each other to secrecy they wouldn't tell anyone about the encounter for fear of being regarded as something of a loony. However, two years ago, the man she was with that night passed away.
"So I said, 'You know, why not," Collier said. "There's all these people telling stories that's about Bigfoot, and I said, 'Why can't I tell my story now?"
Collier opened a whole world of Bigfoot enthusiasts she didn't know existed online and made fast friends out of the community. Through the internet, she learned that there were many in Alabama who shared the same love.
After visiting other Bigfoot conferences in places such as Michigan and Texas, that's when she thought of forming Alabama's own conference.
The Bigfoot conference at Oxford Civic Center lasts until 8 tonight.
